


Rest In Bony Pieces

by Austennerdita2533



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Ghouls, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Some Humor, Some dark themes or allusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austennerdita2533/pseuds/Austennerdita2533
Summary: Once upon a time the Tomb World was a realm which was rumored to be littered with terrors, with murderous wails that lit the air red with droplets of hell which fell heavier on ears than blood.It was ruled by the Mikaelson Ghouls, Klaus and Caroline, a fierce and fleshy phantom couple who was blessed with the magical arts of the dead and the dark and who often infiltrated the Coven Land Provinces to tempt residents there to visit. Or, sometimes, to steal them away for magical offenses that deserved to be repaid in kind...with skin and bones.





	Rest In Bony Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Klaroween Bingo contribution. 
> 
> I've never written anything like it before but suffice it to say it's Halloweeny with lots of word play. There are some darker allusions, made-up creatures, magic, and a little bit of Damon shade not because I loathe him as a character but because it fit for the purpose of this story. It's probably weird but, again - HALLOWEEN - so I just let it come out. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it because I had so much fun writing it.
> 
> xx Ashlee Bree

 

  ** _skin is stripped then shed at the gravestone gates—_**

** _leaving only bones and blackness, sockets and stillness,_ **

** _in its place_ **

Once upon a time the Tomb World was a realm which was rumored to be littered with terrors, with murderous wails that lit the air red with droplets of hell which fell heavier on ears than blood. Ruled by the Mikaelson Ghouls, Klaus and Caroline, a fierce and fleshy phantom couple who was blessed with the magical arts of the dead and the dark, it straddled a hybrid plane of existence which permitted it to pop up and down through tiny slits in the earth. Effectively tilling the Coven Land Provinces (CLP) with macabre chilliness, fog, dread, and haunted moans while it searched for what - or whom - it wanted.

Like a skulking shadow, this dimensional place often emerged in cemeteries at the first sprinklings of twilight to stain the hallowed grounds in rusted doom and decay until dawn. Dirtying the soles of the living as well as coloring their limbs in shades of blue which shone bluer than death no matter where they tread among their families, friends, or lovers after they’d visited. It wasn’t unheard of, either, for people to return home with no memories of events. The scent of crushed roses on their bodies the only proof that they’d crossed from one world into the next, then come back again, alive and well.

Sometimes, too, when it teetered on a more nefarious edge of visibility, always for some reason unknown, the Tomb World yanked  unsuspecting fool after unsuspecting fool beneath the earth to carve hearts free of blood. Or perhaps to stomp out the threat of resistance from those magical folk who were determined never to become a skullhead even though they all believed it to be their inevitable future regardless. Even though they all knew - that when a faint shiver slithered through their bones like a whisper, the night quieting to the pitch of a fading breath, their whole world slicing open backwards from toes to head, then from bone to flesh - that the Mikaelson Scythe Swingers would catch them by a tendon or a ligament in the end. 

Everyone understood how, together, Klaus and Caroline, first and only of their name, could drag every last dissenting or devious witch, warlock, faerie, wizard, goblin, elf, or demon through the Coffin Chamber Core door of their kingdom and toss them underneath the dripping blood moon for questioning. Or worse, for sentencing at a later date. 

They could stack CLP residents far - no - they could stack them high into the catacomb depths (a location that’s remained an impenetrable mystery for the past five millennia) where their screams could never reach sympathetic ears again.

“No! No, don’t come any closer!” came the latest desperate and resounding plea, the man’s fingernails clawing at dirt that wouldn’t hold firm; at ground that wouldn’t quit eroding. 

“Back off, I said! Stay away! You’ve—you’ve already stolen away everything I had, or have ever wanted. Now it’s gone,” he cried. “It’s all gone!”

“Now, now, not everything, surely? No need to exaggerate with these pitiful hysterics,” Klaus spat down at the wretch from his seat. “After all, we’ve only taken your eyes, your hair, your skin…the heart you’d swindled out from under your brother’s nose using only the dirtiest of tricks.” He leered above him boldly; unapologetically. Like a formidable king. “She’ll forget you sooner rather than later, I’d wager. Your precious Elena.”

“No! Please, no!” 

Klaus frowned at the outburst, annoyed by it and not at all moved. “The sire bond sorcery you wielded is already lifting, mate. Take care to accept it. We’ve taken great pains to correct your magical devilry.”

“Not her, not Elena—take away anything but that,” the man said. “ _Please_.” 

Turning then, his head cocked in deferent consideration toward his queen, “What say you, love? Is this…” Klaus flicked his hand as if he were swatting at a rodent instead of toward a disgraced magic man, “is this Damon Salvatore of the Mystic Warlock Sect worthy of some kind of reprieve?”

“So…basically you’re asking me if he deserves mercy?” she said, her fingers strumming.

“More or less.”

“I’ll consider it. Let me think.”

“What more could you two possibly take from me? I have nothing left,” Damon grumbled miserably from his pitted grave. “Nothing.” 

“I’m afraid that’s presently up for discussion. So hush or you’ll suffer my rage,” Klaus growled, a finger raised in warning.

Angry silence descended from the former after that, the rise and fall of his chest stitched together with but a few threads of hopeful leniency. A look passed over Damon’s face before long, however, which, despite the absence of his slanted black eyebrows as a result of his current physical state, still managed to give him the appearance of a vulture crowing over spoils that were not yet his to claim.

Caroline, though, with her blonde curls threaded through with a crown of blackened roses, her ankles crossed as she perched atop a throne razed from rotten bones and citadels carved out of old yet familiar faces, simpered down at the skeleton man stripped bare on his knees before her now. She looked to be seemingly unmuddled by his gluttonous glare; aware of it, of course, but in a way that prompted no outward reaction or comment. Instead, she conducted herself with an air of penetrating calm, poise, and friendliness. Scrutiny and kindness sticking to each subsequent blink of her fair eyelashes. 

“Fetch Kol and Enzo, Omisha. Yes, fetch them immediately,” she said over her shoulder after she’d observed Damon in quiet for a moment.

Her thumb and forefinger gave a small snap, echoing like a bell in the dim cathedral-like room where they were assembled. Omisha, the skullhead attendant she summoned, bowed before disappearing into the marble mausoleum on her left without a sound.

“For…what precisely?” Klaus asked.

“I need them.”

“Now?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he smirked, tracing a thumb down Caroline’s cheek so he could reel her in by the chin for a kiss. “How about you enlighten me, hm? Wherever you lead, you know I will follow.”

“Well, since you asked nicely and took extra care to flatter me today,” she beamed, “I need them to cut out his tongue, of course! I mean, duh! Kol and Enzo are the best tongue clippers on this side of the Tomb, and this one here broke the cardinal rule of love and sorcery without remorse—then or now. I’m not okay with that.”

“Neither am I, I’m afraid.”

“Yay! I’m so glad we agree,” Caroline said with overt cheerfulness and planted another affectionate smack against his lips. Damon protested in earnestness (albeit in ignored decibels) as she tucked her hand into Klaus’s like it had promised to return there, and always would. “Besides, he has no need of a tongue now, anyway.”

“No?”

“Nope.” A shrug preceded a gleeful, borderline wicked smile then. She turned away from Klaus to aim it toward their prisoner whose bones scuttled and scraped backwards on the ebony foreground before their joint throne, where he tried, but failed, to climb out of his grave.

“More importantly,” Caroline added in a regal voice sharper than a guillotine blade, Damon’s eye sockets growing wider and wider as each word slashed through his peace of mind and he awaited his fate with dread, “neither do I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are fabulous. Thanks for reading, y'all. :)


End file.
